The wave of new drug approvals that had been building at the FDA has broken. According to the official tally of new drug and biologics approvals at the agency, the biopharma industry registered only 27 OKs for new entities in 2013–a sharp plunge from 2012’s high of 39 that once again raises big questions about the productivity and sustainability of the world’s multibillion-dollar R&D business.

After 2012 some experts boasted that the industry had turned a corner, with the agency boasting that it was outstripping the Europeans in the speed and number of new drug approvals. But for 2013 the numbers look a lot closer to the bleak average of 24 new approvals per year seen in the first decade of the millennium than the 35 per year projected by McKinsey through 2016.

The agency says it was hampered by a sharp drop in the number of new drug applications, forcing a sudden plunge in the annual total–even after starting the year with a new breakthrough therapy designation (BTD) designed to speed the arrival of major therapeutic advancements.